Alike - Part One
by Iris-Rei
Summary: Hear Sora's past, unabridged...


Alike   
Part one   
by Iris-Rei

Digimon isn't owned by me, but I wish like heck it was. :P.

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I've never told anyone about this. No one. I'm not even sure why I'm telling you this now.

It's a secret, a story I've kept buried inside me for as long as I can remember...

~*~*~

I still can remember the exact night it all began. Eight years ago, on the day after the "terrorist attack" on Highton View Terrace, my mother found me asleep on the balcony of our apartment. She got hysterical.

Mother hadn't come home until 11:00 the night before, so she held my father responsible for letting me go outside when those attacks started. Father retaliated by yelling that it wasn't his fault; he didn't know how I got outside.

Mother didn't believe him. For the next week, Father slept on the couch.

That was what made our family break apart.

Father was almost never home from then on. He left for work early and stayed late, only coming home long after I fell asleep. On the few occasions he came in time for dinner, a very tense silence would always fall over the table.

Worse still, Mother pretended that she wasn't even married anymore. She spent all her time in the flower shop she and my aunt Emilie. I found Father's clothes in the trash one day. She just stopped short of changing her last name back to Himeno.

My only sanctuary was school, where no one knew what happened at home and still treated me the same. I could play soccer, learn addition, and doodle on my work and not remember the terrible silences at home.

That's how I got to be friends with Tai.

He acted like I was a sister. When we were on soccer, we always played on the same teams. He teased me endlessly, but Tai would apologize in the end. I loved being with him. I loved school. It was like I had a new family, one where everyone still had problems but they were no where as bad as mine.

About a month after the big fight, Father came home for dinner. After five minutes of horrible silence, Mother stood up suddenly and said, "I just can't take it anymore!"

Father: "Take WHAT, Mary?"

As quietly as I could, I moved away from the table and ducked into the hallway. I just wasn't hungry anymore. Even though every single part of my body told be to get away, to my room maybe, curiousity got the better of me and I peeked at them from behind a table.

Mother glared at him like he was her worst enemy. Maybe he was by then.

"The doctor just told me that I am two-months pregnant," she hissed, seething. I noticed, as if for the first time, the small smooth roundness of her belly.

Father seemed overjoyed for a split second. His smile disappeared in a matter of seconds, though, and replied in a somewhat cold and strangled voice, "And?"

"You know what? When I married you, I thought you were kind, caring. And you just LEFT our child outside!" Mother was yelling now, and her normally tight bun was beginning to fall apart. "It is your girl, you named her, and soon you'll have another kid!"

"**For the last time, I DON'T KNOW HOW SHE GOT OUTSIDE!**"

__

They're fighting about me, I thought. _About when I found out how to unlock the door and there were weird noises outside._

The horrible feeling fell down through and landed in the pit of my stomach. I knew I had to tell the truth before it got worse, but my feet felt like lead and all I really wanted to do was to crawl into my bed and pull my covers over my head.

One thing I want more in the world than anything else is for everyone else to be happy. So, I plucked up what little courage I had and went into the kitchen, where Mother was still yelling.

"OH, YEAH, SURE, YOU DON'T REMEMBER!! I SHOULD'VE GUESSED, SOMEONE WHO CAN'T EVEN FIND HIS OWN SOCKS WILL FORGET WHEN HE LETS HIS ONLY CHILD OUTSIDE AND LEAVES HER THERE! WHY, I OUGHTA--"

"Mother?" They both turned at me.

"I--I need to te--ell you...Father didn't leave m--me outside. I--I--Well, I unlocked the door---by myself," I stuttered quietly.

Father laughed triumphantly.

But Mother, who was more determined to keep herself from being wrong than I thought, talked to him coldly.

"Do you think it's over? Cause I'm asking you, Ken, _how did she manage to unlock the door when you were watching her_?"

He looked at her evenly, like he was judging her. "You just don't know when to give up, do you?"

They stared daggers at each other.

"This is _it_. It's over," said Father. And then, he picked up his jacket, briefcase, and stalked out the door.''

Mother just stared at the door, eyes narrowed with pure hatred.

I ran to my room, tears silently pouring down.

~*~*~

Two weeks went past.

I only saw my father once in those two weeks, when he drove by my school during recess.

School became more of a refuge than ever, but still, it put a stab in my heart every time someone said the word Takenouchi. Sometimes, during recess, I'd spend my time in a forgotten corner, crying my heart out.

Most recesses, I played soccer. Soccer just wasn't fun, it gave me something to think about besides my mom and dad's break up. Some days I could concentrate on the next soccer game so hard that I'd forget about the troubles at home for hours.

I tried to stay at school for as long as I could, and then I'd walk as slowly as I could when I went home, trying to keep my mind on the scores and how to perfect my passes instead of the gnawing fear of what would I find at home.

Later, I considered those two weeks my calm before the storm.

One day, I had the chance to reach home at the same time Mother did. We didn't say much besides the typical mother-daughter conversation ("How's school?", "Fine", "Math going okay?", "Yeah", etc., etc.).

I waited for Mother to unlock the door, and heard something extremely unsettling.

Mother told me to wait by the door, but I followed her anyways.

She opened the door to their (my parents') bedroom. There she stood, frozen, with her legs planted in a wide stance. I tried to look over her shoulder, but as I was still small. I couldn't see what was happening.

My father's voice. "Mary...what are you doing here this early?"

A long pause.

Mother, shaking with either anger or fear, I couldn't tell, replied, "I am filing for a divorce."

She strided out of the doorway, and I could see what had happened.

Father was sitting up in the bed without his shirt...and a woman, who was nude also, was lying beside him.

I thought about running to my room, where the pillow was already wet with tears.

Instead, I ran all the way back to school and stood outside the gate, eyes flooding.

~*~*~

A month went by since Mother found Father sleeping with another woman. I tried harder than ever to stay at school as long as I could. I stayed in the girl's bathroom until the janitor would find me and threw me out. I made friends with many boys, because the girls would always be talking about this shirt and that necklace, and it would make me feel horrible when I had to say that I didn't have any of them.

They would ask why. I never brought myself around to say, "Because my mother spends all her time in her flower shop and my dad abandoned us. They just don't care about me anymore."

Tai and I grew closer day by day. He reminded me of a brother I never had, a friend who knew me better than my mother. The only thing I didn't tell him were the troubles at home.

~*~*~

I could smell the sharp scent of broken grass mixed with sweat. It was just the simple, pure, sweet joy of running under the hot sun.

"Tai! Pass it, I'm open!"

Tai was to my right. Sweat trickled down my brow. We were so close--just score one more goal, and we would break the tie, winning.

Mr. Kinebuchi stepped onto the field and blew his whistle. He called for me. I smiled apologetically at the guys and walked toward him.

Mr. Kinebuchi hung his head sadly as I approached.

"I'm sorry," he whispered.

Sorry?? What did he have to be sorry about? Maybe the C+ he gave me on the last history test?

"Your father died from a car accident today."

My heart flew to my throat, and I couldn't speak through it. All I could get out was, "Oh."

"I'm so sorry," he said again, and patted my bowed head.

He turned away, and then looked back again. "Oh, and I nearly forgot. You're to stay at Kamiya's house today. Your mother's having her abortion surgery today."

Her baby. I stood silently as he walked away. After a moment, I slowly trudged back to the school. I didn't want to face Tai, not today.

~*~*~

After school, I walked over to the nearest hospital. As luck would have it, it was the same hospital where my mom was having surgery. I asked for her room number and explained that I was family.

I turned the door knob of Room 421. For a second, I hesitated. What would I find in there? But I pushed myself, and turned the knob.

I found a doctor standing by my mother, who was wearing a hospital pajama thing. She was asleep.

"Oh, hi," said the doctor, turning around to me. "I'm Dr. Sugimori. Who are you? Family?"

I nodded. "Daughter."

Dr. Sugimori tried a comforting smile. "I guess you'll want to know what gender the baby was."

Baby--my sibling. Mother never told me what was its sex.

"He's a boy."

A brother. Like Tai.

"I'm sorry, I need to go. My friend's mom is waiting for me." I ducked out before he could stop me.

~*~*~

Matt looked at Sora. Even though it was nearly perfectly dark, he could still make out her red hair, her sad eyes.

"After that," said Sora behind her tears, "I promised myself that I'd make sure that no one would have as bad a life as I did. They'd always have a person to call for comfort, someone who'd always smile for them..." The tears rolled down her cheeks. "Not like me."

He gently wiped away her tears, and hugged her.

She gripped him back tightly, tears soaking his shirt.

After a while, she leaned back, wiped her tears with her sleeve, and said, "I'm sorry for crying."

The phrase was so simple, yet it pained him as much as much as it must have pained Tai to hear Kari say, "I'm sorry for not being able to kick the ball."

"It's not your fault," he said. He stood up and faced away.

"I guess there's things I need to tell you too..."

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I hope that wasn't too sad... 


End file.
